Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon |
God did not originally create all things of heaven and earth as a plaything or a hobby. He did not create them without a purpose or direction, or without a certain philosophy. Rather, He created them with a great purpose, based on the philosophy of the great universe. Therefore, we cannot deny that the philosophy based on God's heart is present in all existing things, from the most insignificant creatures to the entire universe. Then, for what purpose did God create them with such a philosophy? Undoubtedly, His aim was to see an ideal world based on God's love, that is, a world where we communicate with love, are joyful with love, live with love, and die with love. When we wake up and open our eyes, we see everything unfolding before us. From all the things we see we receive some mysterious, indirect impression, and by the way our senses respond, these things are enhanced through our daily life.
Even the smallest creatures around us are surely connected to us and have a relationship with us. Even though we may ignore them, these insignificant creatures make a connection with humankind, revealing the value of their existence each day according to the ideal of the heavenly principle. This is because, from the viewpoint of the purpose of existence, from the smallest existence to human beings -- who are called the lords of creation and who can rule over all things -- everything lies within the realm of the ideal of love where they can embrace God's ideal for this vast universe. So in fulfilling the purpose of the universe, movement occurs as small things are absorbed by those that govern a larger sphere. Small things are absorbed by big things, becoming a part of their material form and elements. This leads to the realization of one purpose based on one great ideal.
We cannot deny that history has been advancing this way, and that the world of existence has been moving along the track of a heavenly principle for the sake of one purpose. (9-163, 1960.5.8)
Why did God create all things? It was to have a love object, a partner, and to create a loving relationship. He wanted people to be able to live and then return to the original world and dwell in God's eternal, original homeland of love. (142-75, 1986.3.1)
The Bible describes God's creation of heaven and earth in simple terms, saying that God created heaven and earth through the Word. Stars appeared when God said, "Let there be stars," and the earth appeared when God said, "Let there be earth." But you must be aware that in this process God maintained the principle of progression, developing small things into big things according to infinite order and law.
According to this principle, after creating all things, God created our ancestors, Adam and Eve, by concentrating the essences of everything in the universe. (65-20, 1972.11.13)
Today's Christians say that since God is omniscient and omnipotent, everything came into being by God merely saying, "Let there be such a heaven and earth." But this is not the case. God invested everything, all the energy He had. By investing the full power of His love, He created all things as a gift for His beloved sons and daughters to come, His beloved future family. Everything was created like that. So we should look at all things keeping this in mind. (112-306, 1981.4.25)
With what did God create? In the beginning, there was God's will and there was God's thought. Together with God's thought there was a plan. We can see that there was God's original will and plan to build some kind of human world after the creation of human beings. (76-91, 1975.2.1)
One thing you should know is that in creating the world, God first created the environment. This is the world that resulted from the relations of subject and object partners. The natural world has developed as a world of phenomena where subject partners and object partners act in conjunction with one another. (131-217, 1984.5.4)
When we consider the principles used in the creation of heaven and earth, God did not make the central beings and then the environment for them. Rather, before creating human beings, God prepared an environment based on relationships. In order to create human beings, He first made soil. He established the internal based on the external. This is the principle by which heaven and earth were created. Things that existed at one time have given way to bigger things, and things without value have given rise to things of value. This is the principle underlying the creation of heaven and earth. In creating human beings, God first made the human body and then the spirit. (152-318, 1963.8.18)
When God saw everything He had created during the six days, He was filled with pride and He wanted to display them proudly. His joy was infinite as He looked at His creation. When God said, "It is good, it is good," over and over again with such a joyful heart, to whom was He speaking? He was speaking to all the things of creation. We have to understand that He was talking to all things with such an eager heart. (5-238, 1959.2.8)
When God created the world, there was joy there. After creating it, He said that it was good to behold. He felt joy. What is joy? It is what you feel when you accomplish a certain purpose. God felt joyful over all the things He had created because God's sense of purpose was embedded in them.
Then, what kind of world is the restored world? Simply stated, it is a world where people live having multidimensional connections of heart through which they can praise God as they behold each individual entity in the universe. This is where, from Heaven's viewpoint, the value of character lies. So the story that St. Francis preached to animals and birds is not a lie. It sounds like a dream, but it is reality. (9-166, 1960.5.8)
Although love exists even when you are alone, it cannot function until you have a partner. Even God cannot love without a partner. Even though love is what God likes most, that love cannot be manifested when He is alone. When one is alone, one can feel neither the joy nor the impulse of love. This is why God created the universe as a partner with which He can share love and joy. After creating the universe, God created Adam and Eve as its owners. (143-81, 1986.3.16)
Everything in the created world is prepared like a textbook so that God's beloved sons and daughters can seek out the ideal of love. That is why everything exists in a pair system. The mineral kingdom operates through the relationship of subject partner and object partner. In atoms, too, protons and electrons interact through the relationship of subject partner and object partner. Without this interaction they cannot continue to exist. Without movement, there can be no eternal existence. Hence, the universe is centered on humankind, and it is the sphere created to enable them to reach the central point. (137-59, 1985.12.18)
What is the universe? It is like God's visible body. It is an extension of God's being. This is why the idea emerges that we can truly love. In other words, loving the universe is a very real experience. You stroke your hair like this, don't you? When you get some dirt on your clothes, you brush it off, right? Why do you do this? Because they form a part of you. Because they are one with you, you have that attitude. From now on, you should bring God into the middle of your heart and build a unified world where your mind is one, your body is one, and all things are one. (86-173, 1976.3.28)
If you want to know, the universe is many billions of light-years across. Light travels 300 thousand kilometers a second, and 300 thousand kilometers is seven and a half times the circumference of the earth. In astronomy, the distance that light travels over the course of one year is called one light-year. The universe is so big that the light that moves according to this light-year unit cannot reach its final destination even after billions of years. (127-213, 1983.5.8)
The Greenwich Observatory has so far discovered stars that are ten billion light-years away, and now the time has come when we can see stars that are fifteen billion light-years away and even farther. The size of this universe is a principled number -- 21 billion light-years across. Light travels at the rate of 300 million meters per second. That means that light would circle the earth seven and a half times in one second.
For this high-velocity light, traveling even one day should be back-breaking, numbing the mind and causing it to say, "I don't care anymore." But it speeds along not just for a hundred years, but for billions of years. One hundred million is a hundred times a million. However, even one hundred million years after it started, it is still moving. If a person lives a hundred years, a million people have lived and died during that time period. In other words, one hundred million light-years means that the light is still traveling even after each person lived for a hundred years end to end and this continued for a million people. Then, how long are 21 billion light-years? Each person must live a hundred years from start to finish, so this must continue for 210 million people, and more. Light does not travel this long distance in a straight line, but travels in circles. This is our universe. (181-195, 1988.10.3)
What on earth do we mean by the perfection of the universe? In order to perfect the universe, each of us must become perfect. No matter how perfect the universe may be, this has nothing to do with you if you are not perfect. We know that no matter how wonderful the world may be, and although the world out there may be dancing with joy, if you are in great pain, all the joyful circumstances going on in the external world have nothing to do with you. (166-210, 1987.6.7)
The perfection of the universe must bring joy to the internal you, as well as to the external world. Both your mind and your body must rejoice in a place of happiness. Your cells, for instance, must all rejoice. The cells in your eyes and those in the soles of your feet are different, are they not? Although they are different, the cells in your hands and all your cells must be happy, along with all the parts of your body and mind. Leaving nothing out, everything must be able to rejoice. Rather than remaining in separation, they should join together as one. Only when we have a world that can experience the resonant joy of love based on the reality of this interconnected body, will the universe become perfect. (166-210, 1987.6.7)
Some people who pray have called nature the number one Bible. It does not take second place. The Bible that describes the history of Israel does not always give a clear message. Do you know how much I shook my head as I read it? It can be very ambiguous; people understand what they want to from it, as if it were a fortune teller telling their fortune. For some it is a way to escape from reality. So the natural world created by God is better than the Bible at carrying out the hard task of judging the facts and clarifying everything from beginning to end. (20-270, 1968.7.7)
Connections are made beginning in extremely small places. Your individual self is also a life in which 400 trillion cells are connected. Among all beings in the ideal world of creation centered on God's love -- that is the great universe -- there is not even one that is born outside God's heart. A poet who feels such a thing must be a great poet. If there were a poet who could feel and express the cosmic heart when he saw a shaking leaf, he would have to be a poet of the universe.
We have not thought about how everything in heaven and earth that unfolds around us without our being aware of it exists together with God's love. When you enter into a mystical state of mind, you can see that the principle of the universe is contained in one small grain of sand and how the endless and inexhaustible harmony of the universe is contained in one atom. We cannot deny that all existence is a result of some unknown yet complex force.
Beyond the molecules there are atoms, and beyond the atoms there are elementary particles. These things, rather than existing unconsciously, exist with a certain consciousness and purpose. Thus, you should thoroughly understand that all existing beings have come about through God's loving hand. So they are inevitably connected to God in heart. (9-166, 1960.5.8)
What kind of person is a spiritual master? The one who has the heart to exclaim, "God!" while holding just one blade of grass, and who can recognize its value as being equal to his own. That person is the greatest spiritual master. A person who can sing about such a value in that way would be the greatest artist. The person who can discover the various tastes of God's love and heart in the diversity of all things existing around him should represent the entire universe. He or she is the one who has the feeling to become friends with all things and find joy with them.
If there is someone whose each and every cell is moved by such a feeling, he should be the one to represent the entire universe. Such a person is a lord of creation. Could someone who knows nothing other than eating become the lord of creation? (9-166, 1960.5.8)
If you carefully observe children, mainly they like lively creatures such as puppies, insects, birds and wild animals. Why is this? This is basically how people are. What does this mean? Their interests are aroused when they see the natural world and the earth in motion. Although, of course, there can be different levels of partners, people enjoy themselves and find it interesting to contemplate these things. In this way, they learn about all the properties of love within themselves. Observing how bugs, insects and animals live, we see that they all exist in pairs. Considering this, nature is a museum of textbooks built to educate human beings, as the object partners of God's love, about the ideal of reciprocal relationships. (137-211, 1986.1.3)
God made the universe and everything in it to be a textbook to help His beloved sons and daughters find the ideal of love. This is why everything exists in a pair system. The mineral kingdom operates through the relationship of subject partner and object partner. In atoms, which are the structural units of matter, the protons and electrons interact in a relationship of subject partner and object partner. Without this interaction they cannot exist. Without movement, there can be no eternal existence. This is why they must interact.
People observe and learn from nature as they grow up. They learn things and say, "This is what the insect world is like!" When you listen carefully on an autumn night with a radiant moon and shining stars, the sounds of the insects are like an orchestra. Why do they make such sounds? They are singing of their ideal as they search for their partners. They are whispering about love. Birds and all other animals follow the same common denominator of love in making their sad and glad sounds. They are low on the scale, and far from the axis, and yet they are circling around the axis on the same horizontal plane. This is the way all things in existence are. (137-59, 1985.12.18)
There are three kinds of bird songs: first, a song signaling hunger; second, a song sung out of love for its mate; and third, a song sung in time of danger. They are all different. We ordinary people do not know this, but in their own world they know. When they call out of hunger, all their fellow birds understand. But what does their daily life revolve around? Hunger is taken care of simply by eating, and they are not facing danger every day, either. Most of their singing has to do with going back and forth in the give and take relationship with their love partner. (137-211, 1986.1.3)
Human beings were created as a subject partner and object partner, as a pair. The world of all things, too, which exists for the sake of humankind, makes harmony under the principle of love and realizes its purpose in life and ideal through the love of humankind. For humankind, and especially for the maturing Adam and Eve, the world of all things is a textbook of love and a museum that infinitely displays the essence of love. (135-10, 1985.8.20)
All birds and animals exist in pairs. They harmonize with each other in love. Flowers and butterflies relate from two opposite poles, yet harmonize with each other. This reflects the harmonious relationship of heaven and earth. The opposite poles of the universe come into harmony based on love. It's the same with migratory birds. Birds in the south fly to the north, and birds in the north fly to the south, loving each other back and forth across the regions. In so doing, they center on love eternally.
People learn about love through the textbooks in the museum God created. When people and God love each other in joy, everything in heaven and on earth will follow that rhythm and harmonize around them. If God likes this and loves this, the angelic world also will like it. The entire created world will like it too, applauding and offering praise. Songbirds will sing praises, and beautiful flowers will offer praises through their fragrances. This created world exists in order to expand the fragrant atmosphere in which human beings, in the central position, having the highest love, can enjoy themselves. Even the ugly toads croak, "Wook, wook, wook," when they make love. How charming! They kick with their legs and move them up and down while making love. What a delightful scene! This is the highest art. (142-273, 1986.3.13)
As they mature, Adam and Eve will come to understand, saying, "Ah, that's how to make love." God laid out the world of all things to serve as a textbook, to guide the ideal of human love to reach maturity. So they go on learning. As they grow bigger, they will come to have different feelings toward each other, saying, "Aha, we were like a brother and sister in the past, but now it seems..." They will learn, saying, "Aha, that's the way it is." So they will go straight along parallel lines, and then collide, saying, "You and I must meet even at the risk of death. We cannot go anywhere else." (137-59, 1985.12.18)
Born as God's first children, Adam and Eve were to grow from childhood to maturity in the realm of God's protection. Since their intellect was meant to develop through this process, they would have come to realize why God created the world, and God would have educated them through the created world. The created world, with everything in motion, was a textbook to teach Adam and Eve everything they needed to know about how to live. They were to have been our first, original ancestors. You have to understand that since Adam and Eve did not reach perfection, the created world has been a model and a museum showing us how to lead an ideal life. (137-126, 1986.1.1)
When you open your eyes in the morning and look at nature, it subtly connects with your original nature and inspires feelings about a new ideal that can sprout forth. On the other hand, you know very well that the more you look at the human world, the more despair and sorrow it arouses in your heart. If the world were populated by people who had not fallen, the value of human beings would not stir up sorrow in the heart of a beholder. Human beings were not created merely to have the value of a blade of grass, a flower or a tree trunk. People were supposed to be noble beings who could not be exchanged for anything in the created world. They were supposed to step forward representing Heaven with incomparable value. (9-97, 1960.4.24)
You should have a mind that contemplates nature that is imbued with the love of God and says, "Could anything precious owned by a king of this world or by some famous person compare with this? Could any antique artifact compare with this? Could a glamorous dress worn by a famous lady compare with this?" Without that kind of heart, we are committing a sin before the natural world without even knowing it. If there is someone who can look at a living being and say, "Can anything produced by human hands compare with this? No matter how great someone may be, could he ever be greater than God?" and value most highly all things created through God's hard work, he must surely be a child of God. Such a person does not need to pray. He lives with God. God guides people into such a position. (9-174, 1960.5.8)
People will enjoy and take delight in anything that belongs to someone they love. Nevertheless, they do not know how to take delight in all things created by God, whom they should love the most. Can such people become God's sons and daughters? You are responsible to liberate creation which is sighing and lamenting from its sorrow. You should deeply experience the heart and care that God invested in the creation of even one tree or plant 6,000 years ago. You should have such a heart. So you should be able to shed tears even at the sight of one plant along the road, or holding onto one tree, say, "How lonely you must be to have lost your master!" I myself have wept profusely while grasping a rock; I have shed tears to feel the wind blow. Now, because you have heard my words, you understand why. (9476, 1960.5.8)
I have gone this way while saying to myself, "The precious things of creation, which God made and which have forged an eternal connection with God, are not cherished as much as national treasures or valuables in some kingdoms today. I will understand that sorrow; I alone must understand." If you have a heart that says, "I will understand, though all those living on this earth may be ignorant of it," your people will be a new people who can rule humankind in the future. This is not a concept but a fact. Where are the people who can value all things of creation more than the family treasures that are handed down over the generations, or more than diamonds, supposedly the most precious stone in the world -- so that they hold on to those things and refuse to let them go? Upon seeing those who understand in their hearts what He has created, and who hold those things and shed tears over them, God will say, "My dear children!" (9-176, 1960.5.8)
What is nature? It is an exhibit that God has given us as a gift, something He prepared for the birth of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the song of a bird and a plant growing are decorations prepared to bring beauty into the lives of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the rocks rolling on the road were created as decorations for a nation, since God knew that His sons and daughters would be the owners who would rule over that nation. It is the same with flowing water. God did not want things to be dry and monotonous, so He created things for a prince of dreams and of hope who could look at this infinitely colorful and harmonious garden -- this world of love -- and inherit it.
Hence, we learn from all things of creation. When the male and female birds sing, the lady who owns them should learn from that. You should be able to sing praises for the beauty of the original world of creation, where everything devotes its entire life to establish a world where each lives for the sake of the other. Then, even baby birds will want to come and live in your home. Birds will want to have their young there. (175-186, 1988.4.16)
No matter how precious a work of art in a museum may be, can it have more value than a living work of art? I am asking who has loved this earth, the museum of all things and the work of God, more than God has. I am asking if anyone has loved it more than the museums in his own country. Can you compare a gold crown from the Silla Dynasty in the museum with a dandelion lying on the road, when that is made directly by God? If there is a king who embodies the heart of such a God and takes care of the creation with a heart that says, "You stand in a position to receive love. I am sorry that I cannot love you from the position of the king for whom the original God could exist," the tufts of grass will want to follow that king and be with him eternally. This is how people should live. (175-186, 1988.4.16)
You should know how to love nature and love people. You should know that those who cannot love people or love nature cannot love God. Because all things of creation are symbols for God and because people are substantial beings, those who know how to love all things of creation and people will come to love God. (70-181, 1974.2.9)
You should always love nature. You should love nature and love people. You should love people of all five colors in the human race. Would God say, "Oh, I like only white people"? Then everyone would have to wear only white clothes. All white people would have to wear only white clothes, and throw away all their colored clothes. Why would you wear black clothes or colored clothes? That would be a contradiction. (133-28,1984.7.1)
Even all the elements and the smallest creatures go toward the way of love. They are moving toward being the cells of humankind that can directly contact the love that is one with God. For this reason, we should sacrifice ourselves for the sake of love. We should invest ourselves.
Since there is a tradition of pouring out one's life and possessions in their entirety, lower entities seek to give their whole being for the sake of higher entities. This is not Darwin's Theory of Evolution but a theory of absorption based on love. The question is how the value of one of the smallest creatures increases as it becomes material to be used in creating the next higher level of value. (204-129, 1990.7.1)
We should feel that all creatures of God are objects of our love. We should be people who can love, and be loved by, even the smallest forms of life, not to mention human beings, as well as everything visible and invisible in heaven. When a bird calls, "Chirp, chirp, chirp" in the morning, instead of saying, "You pesky sparrow, I am trying to sleep late. Why are you chirping?!" say, "Oh, thank you. You came to wake me up. Ha ha, you are telling me that an important guest is coming to see me." The outlook is different. This is a great thing. (112-219, 1981.4.12)
Centered on such people, a myriad of angels in heaven form a subject realm of harmony where they can have give and take with people, as butterflies and bees do with flowers. When that happens, a flowery garden of harmony will surely appear in which God rejoices, people rejoice, angels rejoice and all things are immersed in love. A spring party will then begin. (31-124, 1970.5.3)
God created the angelic world at the same time that He created the human world. What kind of world is the angelic world? Only when human beings appear with beauty and fragrance -- like blossoms that exist for the sake of bearing one fruit -- will the nest of love finally be prepared. Hence, all life starts from there, and all beings that have life can harmonize starting from there. Human beings make this harmony possible.